


Schrödinger's Teddy

by cantilatrix



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Next Generation, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2019-09-23 19:35:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17086424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantilatrix/pseuds/cantilatrix
Summary: 2015. Kind of.Teddy Lupin is seventeen years old, about to go into his final year at Hogwarts. He's Head Boy, he has a burgeoning relationship with an awesome girlfriend, and he's looking forward to the wide world outside school.And then- well.Now all he's trying to do is get back home.





	1. 1st September 2015- A Bear

** 1st September 2015 **

The music is blindingly loud, but he doesn’t have it any other way. He flicks his wrist against the desk in time to the snare drum, nods his head from side to side with the guitar riff. The vocals kick in and he swirls in his deskchair, stands, stalks across his bedroom in what he approximates to be a kind of sexy way.

He always props his trunk against the door when he starts dancing, make sure Gran can’t come in. He doesn’t care who hears him sing, but the dancing part is something he’s still working on getting over. He’d prefer to be a good dancer than be a dancer that doesn’t care how he looks, but he reckons that ship sailed long ago. This morning, the trunk is still propped against the door, but he had to push it into place; it’s full of clothes and books. The weight of it is exciting, but strained his back a bit.

It’s Muse today, loud and drum-heavy, their Drones era. He loves drums, would have learnt them if both Gran and Harry hadn’t been so staunchly against it. He grins as the second verse kicks in, the vocals accentuated on the backbeat with the drummer, and he-

Pause. He takes off his headphones, taps the walls- a failed try, again, with the words this time- ‘Silencio’, ‘silencio’, ‘silencio’, ‘silencio’, all the way round, on the ceiling and on the floor, and sends  his Spotify to his speakers-

-and he sings along.

“Your m-i-i-i-i-ind... is just the program.... and I’m the vi-i-i-irus-“

Matt Bellamy hisses the ‘s’ in virus, then wobbles his whole tone around for ‘I’m changing the station’, and while Teddy _can_ do both those things in his voice, he finds it way more fun to do in Matt Bellamy’s voice, and so he does. His vocal chords always buzz a little when he transforms them mid-song, and it kind of hurts, but he doesn’t want to skip back the song and he wants to stay on beat.

“I’ll turn you into a-“

Teddy stops and listens for a word, then continues. He has no clue what he says at that point. ‘Spectral?’ He pulls out his iPhone (brand new, a 6 or something, he keeps running his thumb over the bevelled edges) and googles the lyrics. ‘Super drone’. That’s a stupid lyric, he thinks, still idly singing. The phone buzzes and a notification pops down, and it’s from ‘gran‘ and it says ‘Breakfast?’

Teddy winces. Gran hates using her phone, so she’s probably already called, knocked, sent the- he opens his curtains a little and yes, Dave the owl’s sitting there, looking more than a little put out. It taps on the window with its beak again. Teddy closes the curtains, pauses the song (he waits ‘til the end of the chorus), removes the silencing charms, kicks his trunk, hops, curses, shoves his _really heavy_ trunk out of the way, and then takes the stairs down two at a time with the confidence of someone who’s been doing that ever since his legs were long enough to do it.

He only trips a little bit, and then he’s there, in the kitchen, smiling at the Weird Sisters on the radio, sliding open the bread box, popping it in the toaster, and Gran is there watching him, eating her own careful porridge, pausing between bites to signify she’s about to say something. Teddy scrapes Nutella on his toast and waits for her to speak.

“I knocked,” she says, “and I sent David up.”

“Sorry Gran,” Teddy says. “I had muffled it, but I saw Dave.”

“All packed?”

“Just got to grab my toothbrush.”

Gran tilts her head in that way she does when she knows you’re wrong, and Teddy figures it out before she even starts talking.

“ _And_ my broom,” he says, biting into his toast before walking out to the living room.

“Harry has asked to take you,” Gran calls after him. Teddy frowns as he jams his broom back into its case.

“How come?” he asks, propping the broom near the doorway.

“I believe he wants you to take care of Albus on the way there.”

Teddy walks back into the kitchen. “I forgot he’s a first year!”

Gran smiles, twirls her porridge spoon. “It really has gone so fast. I recall him running into-“ she points with the spoon- “that cabinet right there. He couldn’t have been older than four, running around the place.” She smiles absently, in that way she does when she’s about to go sad. Teddy cuts across it.

“Are you coming with?”

Gran looks up. “Well! Only if you want me to.”

“Of course I do,” Teddy insists, waving his toast in the air and self-consciously lowering it when he saw a glob of Nutella hit the countertop. Gran doesn’t seem to have noticed. She’s looking back at the kitchen cabinet. Teddy hoped this wasn’t one of her sad days. He bites into his toast again, taps a rhythm against the countertop, cool granite warming as he tries to copy some documentary he’d seen about shuffle drumming with only four fingers. Eventually, Gran looks up.

“Oh! Harry said he’d be here in-“

She glances up at the clock, a hefty ancient clockwork box that was usually correct, but sometimes resented being taken for granted and would display ridiculous times to ensure you were paying attention. It also didn’t like being used as Teddy’s metronome, and was ticking off-beat to mess with him.

“Thirty minutes! I lost track of-“ Gran stands, flicks her wand to send her porridge bowl to the sink, practically launches herself into the living room, presumably to fix her hair at the big mirror. She’s gotten obsessed about her hair going grey, has started to dye it. Teddy had initially made fun of her for being so worried about it, but about a month later, just before she redyed it, Teddy noticed her hair greying in a single silver streak down the front, and had been struck with the reminder of how much she really did look like her sister at times. Gran hated looking like Bellatrix. Teddy had dropped it, much like he manages to drop the toast face down on the floor as he tries to put it back on the plate. He sighs loudly- his wand’s upstairs- grabs some kitchen roll and wipes it up hastily, before taking the stairs up two at a time.

Wand- he grabs it— trunk- he opens it, jams a fistful of boxers in, closes it, taps it with the wand and it floats downstairs— backpack- a battered thing, more patches than fabric, and he checks he’s got his charger and his DS and his DS’s charger and he puts his pencil case in there, his new tuner, a weird glass chicken that Victoire got him that looks like the Nandos logo, chucks it all in the bag and zips it and throws it in the air and hits it with a spell mid-throw and it goes off too— his guitar case, some replacement strings, a loose handful of the picks he can find on the floor inamongst the clothes and trash he’s kind of piled on the side as a laundry pile, and he picks that up and puts it on like a backpack and then takes it off and puts on his pin-covered denim jacket and puts his guitar back on, and—

He almost forgot something.

Some things.

They’re so special he can’t, mentally, include them in a list of ‘things’.

He picks up Old Ted. Rubbed fur, poorly mended seams, nothing much to it besides it being an old teddy bear. But Grandad gave it to him and it made it more than a baggy bit of fabric and stuffing made for Toys R Us. It was the last of a man he never knew, the only gift he had of his. He kisses Old Ted’s scruffy head, makes the bed, nestles him in a pile of pillows so he watches over the room. Old Ted doesn’t go to Hogwarts. Old Ted is the sentinel of his room when he’s gone.

But on his chest of drawers, pride of place, centered- that did go with him.

It was in a tarnished silver frame. He owned silver polish but he never used it enough and kind of preferred the oxidised look anyway. It wasn’t his only copy of the image, it wasn’t even the original because that was too reverent to keep out, to be faded in the sun.

His parents have him in their arms, squished in together so they can kind of share him, and you can see the tail end of him shifting his hair from red to blue. Mum’s smiling at the camera, a kind of gentle smirk. She’s wearing dark lipstick, eyeliner, her hair is bubblegum pink but with, he’s watched it enough to see the subtle shift, a tiny bit of baby blue at the roots. She’s young. Dad’s not _way_ older, he wasn’t in his forties yet, but he looks it, around the eyes, in the set of the jaw, in his greying sandy hair. He’s not looking at the camera. He’s looking down at the baby. Looking down on Teddy. He smiles and you can see one of his scars move his mouth weirdly. He moves a hand towards Teddy, strokes his blue hair carefully. Murmurs something. Mum hears him, looks down, smiles along with Dad.

Then it resets. End of the show.

Teddy strokes a hand down the frame, picks it up, cradles the picture delicately downstairs to the trunk, awkwardly shifts piles of boxers and robes and books aside, carefully nestles it down amongst the folds of his t-shirts, wraps it in some robes. When he stands up, Gran’s there next to him.

“Got everything now?”

Teddy nods.

“And not a second too soon,” Gran exclaims, picking up her handbag as through the window, Teddy sees a large car, almost a minibus, pull into the drive. Teddy smiles, waves his wand to pick up the trunk, leads the way from the house as Gran locks up, waving with a smile to the car.

* * *

 

...

...

...

_If something breaks the laws of space-time and nobody can see it, did it really happen?_

A soft sound of someone locking the door.

A quiet house.

An empty room.

Band posters on the walls, clothes spread out on the floor, a cramped space used to hold too many things. Instax photos blu-tacked on the wall, faded blue wallpaper behind them, fairy lights draped and blinking.

A roughly made bed with white sheets only half-tucked under the mattress.

A teddy bear with a slumping head, too little stuffing in the neck. Faded fur. Loved.

_A sound like a crack, and the teddy bear is gone._


	2. September 1st 2015- A Scarf

The Potter family car is brand new, a huge BMW seven-seater which still smells like plastic and gives Teddy a headache. Harry steps out from the driver's seat and immediately enfolds Teddy in a hug. Teddy smiles, then winces; his godfather's crazy strong these days from all the Auror-ing, and his beard's scratchy against Teddy's cheek. Harry pulls back just before he cracks any of Teddy's ribs, looks him up and down.

"Head Boy," he smiles. "My godson Teddy, Head Boy."

Teddy shrugs. "I reckon it's nepotism."

A click from one of the car doors, and Albus is rushing out, all knees and elbows, to say hi. Teddy grins, high-fives him, hugs him.

"How're you doing, Albie? You excited?"

Albus screws up his face. "Stop calling me that!"

"When the sky falls in," Teddy insists. Behind him, Gran and Harry begin chatting about their relative pride over Head Boy-related topics. "Are you  _not_  excited?"

"What's there to be excited about?" Albus pouts. "I have to spend a whole year alone."

"But you're going to-"

Teddy stops himself. Right in his tracks. Looks down at Albus. Albie's barely eight years old. Teddy blinks. He could have sworn- he could have  _sworn_  it was Albus' first year today.

"Teddy!"

Ginny and James, walking over in unison. James is already wearing his robes, looks like he's slept in them. James is eleven. It is James' first year at Hogwarts. Teddy reckons he's mistaken the two or something. Somehow. James is grinning wide as anything, practically bouncing up the driveway.

"Hey!" Teddy says, smiling, trying to cover for his confusion. "Ready for Hogwarts?"

"You kidding? I packed my bags and everything!"

Ginny grimaces. "With enough of Uncle George's pranks to last a year."

Teddy taps one of the many badges on his jacket- the shining silver-and-yellow 'Head Boy' badge. "McG, McG, come in, we got a prankster."

James' eyes widen, until Teddy winks.

"Just keep them in the common room and we're fine."

"What if I'm in Hufflepuff?" James counters.

Teddy bends down and leans in, using all of his ten-inch height difference to get right in James' face.

"Then we feed you to the badgers."

"There's no badgers."

"Not that  _you_  know of."

James screws up his eyes and sticks out his tongue. Teddy pokes him on the nose.

"Boop."

Albus giggles.

James looks outraged at this booping, goes to tackle Teddy, who pushes him back a little with a grin, and Ginny takes over before it can become a fight.

"All of you, grab a bag!"

Harry and Ginny each take one side of Teddy's trunk and heft it into the boot while James and Albus busy themselves taking Teddy's guitar and backpack. Albus immediately unzips it to see what's inside.

"Woah, you have a DS?"

"Yeah! Had it since I was-"

"It's so  _old_."

Teddy frowns down at Albus. "No it's not!"

"How old is it?"

"Uh... I got it when I was... nine..?"

"Old." Albus nods decisively. "Plus it's pink."

Teddy snatches up his backpack as he climbs into the back of the car, the cramped two seats that are half in the boot, half out. Albus follows him there.

"What's wrong with pink?" Teddy prompts as he puts on his seatbelt.

"It's a girl colour," Albus insists.

Teddy runs a hand back through his hair (freshly restyled, the sides shaved and the top long and voluminous) and effortlessly shifts it from a sandy brown to his favourite shade of pastel pink. Albus giggles.

"Now you're a girl."

Teddy pokes him in the stomach. "Watch it, littl'un. Pink's a cool colour."

"Says you."

"Says me and my ability to bring back Honeyduke's Honeysuckle Honeycomb."

Albus pauses. Teddy knows where his loyalties lie, and it's with the bi-monthly food packages Teddy sends back to the Potters.

"Pink...is cool," Albus announces, and Teddy nods enthusiastically.

"See how easy it is to be cool when you just do whatever I say?" He asks, smiling at Gran as she takes a seat next to James in front of them. James looks back at Teddy.

"Hey, Teddy?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you play Minecraft?"

As Ginny and Harry groan from the front of the car, Teddy steels himself for a very long drive.

* * *

"I'm good, Albie."

"But this one's really good! You play music!" Albus insists, jamming his tablet a little more under Teddy's nose. Teddy smiles, wan. After five different Minecraft parodies of popular music, he was just about ready to jump out of the car.

"I have- homework," he says, pulling a roll of parchment from his backpack.

"You completed your homework in July," Gran comments, because Gran enjoys her grandson's suffering, it seems. Teddy glares at her until she notices him in her periphery. She smiles.

"Turn off the Minecraft thing!" Ginny announces. "We're here."

Harry turns the car into a multi-storey park, and James' nervous leg bouncing turns up a notch. As they make their way to King's Cross, he seems to get more and more concerned.

"Do I have everything?"

"If my toothbrush breaks, do Hogsmeade have more?"

"What if I'm sorted into Slytherin?"

"What if I'm not sorted into any house at  _all_?"

"You'll be fine, dear," Gran assures him. "And if you're sorted into Slytherin, that means you become my favourite Potter."

James looks up at Gran in surprise, almost bumping into some tourists (looking oddly at this gaggle of people in robes, pushing trunks and owls and cats). "Were you in Slytherin, Auntie Andy?"

"I was a Slytherin prefect," Gran replies.

"I don't think I'll want to be a prefect," James replies nervously.

"You sure?" Teddy replies. "Prefects get to tell off all the other kids."

"That sounds boring."

"Ah, it's not all boring." The group looks around. Victoire is standing there, all long blonde hair and sparkling blue-green eyes and sharp smile and  _beautiful_. "I hear we get our own swimming pool." She smiles up at Teddy. "Hiya, Tedward."

Teddy grins and hugs Victoire, as behind him an incredulous Albus cries, " _Tedward_?"

"Now you've done it," Teddy says. "That's my name for the rest of time."

Victoire laughs. "Good. It suits you."

"It's dumb."

" _Exactly_."

Teddy smiles. It's good to see Victoire. He's missed her; Shell Cottage has no mobile service and she's been travelling all over the place with her family anyway. Teddy then notices they're being left behind by the group, and the two of them rush to catch up, Teddy pushing his trolley erratically across the concourse.

"Where's the others?" He asks. Victoire jerks a thumb backwards.

"Mum, Dad and Louis went off already, they're catching a Portkey to Svalbard."

"To what now?"

"It's a big island in the Arctic, it has polar bears."

Teddy blinks at her. "And they're taking Louis? He's small enough to be a polar bear snack."

Victoire narrows her eyes. "I can sense a short joke coming."

"Who, me? Never, miss."

Victoire swishes her robes from side to side as they walk on, and Teddy spots a yellow-and-black scarf sticking out of her pocket. "What's that?"

"What's wh- hey!"

Teddy snatches it, inhales the scent; his, for sure, not Dominique's. Victoire reaches out and snatches it back.

"Mine," she says.

"Last I looked, you weren't the Hufflepuff prefect. Congrats, by the way."

"Thanks. You too, Head Boy." Victoire winds the scarf round her neck. "I think the colour scheme is rather nice."

"It's also mine."

"I can tell, your gran put a nametag on it."

Teddy winces, and Victoire laughs.

"It's cool, it's kind of cute. Like your hair."

"Oh!" Teddy can feel his cheeks reddening, he had entirely forgotten. He brushes a hand backwards through his hair until it's back from pink to a sandy brown. He pulls a strand where he can see it just to check. Victoire laughs. She has a loud laugh, but it's kind, and she pulls him into a sideways hug as they start to catch up with the back of the Potter entourage. Teddy notices that Dominique is chatting excitedly to Ginny, her own long Hufflepuff scarf trailing behind her in the air. He smiles at the warmth of Victoire's hug, leans into it. He really has missed her.

By the time they've rejoined the group, they're all rushing at the barrier, and Victoire has an idea; she bundles herself on top of the trolley and points like she's commanding a battalion. Teddy laughs and takes the trolley a little faster than he usually would, rushing the two of them through so fast that he can feel the air whistling by his ears, has to jam his heels down on the other side to keep from hitting a tall man on the other side. The man turns and narrows his eyes.

"Watch it, mate."

"Sorry," Teddy says breathlessly, steering the trolley round. Victoire hops off and helps him unload his trunk, hand it to a porter. Victoire smiles at him.

"See you at the prefect car," she says, and leans in like she's about to tell him a secret, hides them with her long blonde hair— kisses his cheek and grins all sharp and rushes up to follow Dominique onto the train. Teddy stares after her as a porter takes the guitar case from his hands.

"Your hair's pink again."

Teddy looks down at Albus, who is half paying attention, half on his tablet. Teddy inspects a strand- it's almost salmon pink, and he has to concentrate harder than usual to change it at all. He frowns, settles on a turquoise blue.

"Gonna miss you," Teddy says, leaning against the wall with Albus. Albus sniffs.

"Yeah," he says. "Can't wait to go to Hogwarts too."

"It's not long now, it's just two years."

"It feels like forever." Albus sighs. "I'm really bored of primary school."

"Maths is important."

"It's boring. Lily likes it, though. I just want a wand."

"Yeah. Wanna come say bye to James?"

Albus sighs heavily.

"I guess so."

Over with Harry and Ginny, James is both bouncing up and down with excitement and panicking, and Harry looks close to tears with pride.

"You're going to love it, James," Ginny smiles. "And if you do use those pranks on anyone, tell them your Uncle George says they're half-off during term time."

James nods.

Harry points over to the side. "And if you're looking for someone to say hi to on the train, Dominique said she's going to be in the front carriage."

James' eyes widen. "I can't go talk to them, Dad! Dominique hangs out with all of her Quidditch friends, I'd look weird!"

"Well, then, go out there and make new friends." Harry hugs him tight, and so does Ginny, and Teddy notices James kind of wiping his eyes against Ginny's jumper. James pulls back, says his goodbyes to Albus, which involves a lot of high-fives and insistence that one send the other some sort of foodstuff, and then James is up and away. Teddy turns to Harry and Ginny.

"I'll see you guys for Christmas, yeah?"

"Absolutely, Ted. I think we're all off to the Burrow this year." Ginny says. Harry claps a hand on his shoulder.

"I'm proud of you, Teddy," Harry says. His eyes are shining. "Your parents would be proud."

Teddy blinks and uncomfortably starts a hug so he can take a moment to blink away any tears, and then awkwardly says he has to go talk to Gran, and makes his escape.

Gran doesn't like big crowds. She's standing in the shadowy bit of the concourse, watching the crowd intently. Teddy wonders what she's watching for, and then gets the feeling she's looking for her sister. Gran looks over at him, holds him at an arm's-length, stares at him funny.

"Your last year," she says. "Teddy Lupin, Head Boy."

He smiles. "That's me."

"Are you going to write?"

"As often as I can, every week at least."

"And you'll be home for Christmas?"

"Yeah, Gran, of course."

Gran hugs him, tighter than usual, and Teddy drops his head on her shoulder with a sigh. He thinks this isn't really about him leaving— more that after this year, he'll be going on to the world of adulthood. He thinks that scares her. She's raised two people to adulthood. Not much further. He buries his head a little more into her shoulder and closes his eyes—

_Her shoulder is not there anymore._

_He stumbles forward with her absence, his eyes open, and he is on King's Cross Station, but- not. It's empty. Cold. Dark._

_He takes a confused step forward. He can see graffiti tags on the dilapidated brick walls, and it- it really is cold, he rubs his arms and he can feel frost forming against the denim of his jacket. He looks around._

_The Hogwarts Express is there. It's not quite present. It's silent, but smoke is still billowing from it; it's solid, but if he views it just right it shimmers and warps, and it looks like it's in ten places at once. He reaches out to it, just as he hears a cry, like a baby, like an animal, and he turns—_

"Teddy?"

He's hugging Gran too tight. He gasps, blinks up, can feel his eyes brimming with tears. Something is wrong. Something feels wrong. He's not sure what.

"Sorry, Gran. I'm fine."

Gran smiles.

"I miss them too, love. I miss them too."

Teddy feels nauseous, sick to his stomach. It doesn't feel like the grief he's gotten so used to, but- why not? Things surprise him sometimes.

He inhales. He's fine. All's well.

He hugs Gran again, says his goodbyes over and over as the train whistles, rushes up and into the train and gone, sweeping away in a crimson hulk of metal to Scotland as his family wave to him until they're dots in the distance.

He ignores the churning of his heartbeat, takes a deep breath, and walks to the Prefect's carriage.


	3. September 1st 2015- A Card

For his first meeting with the new prefects, Teddy had written up a quick speech on his phone with bullet-pointed schedules of what everyone was doing for the evening and a time and place for the first ‘official’ prefect meeting. This had been the most organised thing he had ever done, and he thought it would stand him in good stead as a Head Boy who can effectively people manage.

The only problem was, he hadn’t anticipated the Head Girl.

The Head Girl is Aral Rosier. Aral Rosier is an old-school pureblood, former Gryffindor prefect, and Teddy remembers her being _hardline_ with rule-breakers, every single day she had the badge. She really liked taking people off to McGonagall to ask to put them on Forbidden Forest detentions. She’s created handdrawn schedules on parchment for everyone. Including him. She’s kind of speaking in a patronising way to him during the meeting, but not enough for him to protest. She’s also the head of the Duellist Club and has been since she was in fourth year, so Teddy isn’t exactly _inclined_ to protest.

Aral smiles over at Teddy very nicely while informing the prefects (all in robes) that uniform must be worn during official patrols. Teddy is still in torn skinny jeans and a pin-covered jacket. He pastes his smile on his face and very carefully does not look at Victoire, sitting over with the other Slytherin prefect.

Teddy’s not great at organisation, which is why he had been so surprised by the Hogwarts owl delivering his badge. It had been accompanied with a letter by McGonagall explaining that her choice was ‘based on years of observing your work’, and Teddy lets himself feel irrational for a moment, wonder if this was about making him look ridiculous. He then tamps that down and muddles his way to the end of his closing speech, tucking his phone in his pocket; he didn’t realise how stupid he’d feel looking between the screen and the prefects.

“—I’m really looking forward to working with all of you and encouraging inter-house co-operation; I’ll be discussing this with Aral later, but, er, I was thinking of mixing up the patrols between different houses so you all get to know each other.”

Aral smiles patiently. “That sounds like an interesting idea, the Head Girl did that when I was a Prefect.”

Teddy tries not to ascribe too much meaning to her words and tone. Even though she’s _definitely_ doing a baby voice. Aral turns to the group.

“Edward and I are going to be taking the first years along with Professor Hagrid to the boats; your responsibility to them comes after the feast-“

Edward. Nobody calls him Edward, he’s pretty sure the last time he had been called that was by McGonagall just before he was sorted. _In first year_. Everyone knew he was called Ted or Teddy or, well, pretty much anything close, and Teddy didn’t _dislike_ his full name but Aral and he moved in vaguely similar circles, Victoire was in Duellist Club, so she had to know that wasn’t what he went by. He chewed his lip a bit, then tried to stop. Aral was winding down speaking already, he needed to stop zoning out so much.

“—any questions? No? Then I suggest you all take some time to yourselves. The prefect carriage is being staffed in the order written on your schedule; Romina, Emily, you’re first.”

Emily Vaughn, a Hufflepuff prefect he only knows because she makes a point of leaving personally-baked pastries out in the common room whenever she gets the chance, and Romina Shahid, a Ravenclaw he used to sit with in Potions. Teddy realises- Aral’s already mixed up the houses, and now he looks like an idiot. He nods shakily and exits the carriage fast, shoving the schedule into his jacket pocket. He  _could_  identify his feelings about this situation, but he decides that a better use of his time is to go buy as many chocolate products as he can from the trolley lady.

It's two, in the end, two chocolate frogs, because Teddy's many things but he has a good handle on impulse control and not much of a streak for spending. Gran's influence, he guesses. He walks down until he finds the right carriage, opens the door, plops down in the empty seat the others saved for him and jams the frog in his mouth before anyone can speak. The frog wriggles in his mouth. He chews.

Victoire’s already here, as is the other prefect in their midst, Conrí Fawley, and all the rest: David Brown, Maz Nakir, and Arden Kao. Arden nods at him.

“Tedward.”

Teddy swallows the frog. “Arden.”

“Really? No reaction for Tedward?”

“Vic’s already done it.”

Arden groans dramatically as she turns to Victoire. “Ruined.”

Victoire’s still wearing the Hufflepuff scarf over her green robes. Teddy hadn’t noticed earlier. “I had to do it,” she says. ”Look at his face, that’s a Tedward. Couldn’t greet him any other way.”

“I’m just saying, I invented it.”

“Frog card?” Teddy offers the group.

“Cheers, mate,” David says, grabbing it. “Hey, are you and Vic still together?”

Victoire snorts. “The art of subtlety’s not lost on you.”

“She’s wearing my scarf, David, what did you think was happening?”

Conrí shakes his head. “That’s no guarantee of anything, you two’ve been stealing clothes off each other since first year.”

“More like since primary school,” Victoire says. “He nicked my tutu just before my grade 1 ballet.”

Teddy laughs. “Did I?”

“You don’t remember?” Victoire is smiling. “Mum was so mad at you she told you off in French.”

“I always forget you two had a whole past at Muggle school,” Maz says. “You sickening lovebirds.”

“Right here,” Arden says, holding out her hand. Maz and Arden high-five. They don’t agree on much, but their favourite running joke is that Teddy and Victoire are aways on some level of PDA, even if they’re just, like, hugging, or holding hands. Teddy reckons it isn’t PDA unless they’re kissing in a class or something, and Vic and he aren’t _that_ excessive.

David’s face falls. “I got another one.”

Vic leans over. “You did _not_.”

“Another one! The curse of Albus bloody Dumbledore.” David flicks the card at Arden’s head, which makes Arden lunge forward, which makes Maz and Conrí try to encourage the fight and take bets, which means Teddy has ample time to unwrap another frog before anyone tries to nick a leg. This one makes a run for it, but if he's been blessed with something, it's fast reflexes. He catches the frog. Puts it in his mouth. Chews.

“How many cards of him do you have now?” Maz says in the background.

“Like, twenty-five, and I don’t even have one of Ted’s dad.”

Teddy patiently ignores David, who has a tendency to put his foot in it with statements like those, and switches his side of the carriage to Victoire while the rest of the carriage starts arguing about frog cards. Victoire bumps Teddy’s shoulder. Teddy sighs.

“Is Aral Rosier always such a dick?”

Victoire shrugs. “She’s always that intense, I guess, but if you mean the whole-“ she pitches her voice up high like a baby- “ _’That’s very interesting, Victoire_ ’- kind of voice, she does that to pretty much everyone. To be honest, I’ve been in Duellist with her for three years, I’m not even sure she does it on purpose.”

“Just naturally a dick.”

“She’s- she has a weird family environment. I’m pretty sure she _really_ doesn’t get along with them, so we all kind of- just let her work it out.”

Teddy now almost feels bad for being mad at Rosier. Victoire sighs.

“Although sometimes she does bring that to Duellist’s and go _way_ too hard on a firstie. We always get pissed at her for that.”

“Fuck, really?”

“She set a snake on Dominique, middle of her first duel. I did _not_ forgive her for that, I gave her hell until she made a face-to-face apology.”

“ _She’s_ the one that set the snake on Dominique?”

“Yup.”

Teddy shakes his head. “I can’t believe she got Head Girl.”

Victoire shrugs one shoulder, rustles into Teddy’s chocolate frog packet for the card. “She’s good at making everyone else keep to the rules, and I reckon her family probably pulled some strings- ah-hah.” She pulls out a card and hands it to Teddy.

It’s Dad, although Teddy’s seen this card enough to know it wasn’t really a photograph, some sort of trickery where they stitched a couple of on-file photos together into a complete moving image that smiles. The scar on Dad’s cheek doesn’t move when he smiles like it should. In fact, most of his scars are sort of faded out. Teddy doesn’t like that.

He curls a hand over the card and tucks it in his pocket. David’s not getting this one- this one’s his.

“Thanks,” he says to Victoire. Victoire relaxes against him; and then sits up suddenly.

“Oh my god, Teddy, do you have the playlist?”

Teddy blinks, sits up, grins. “Yeah, of course!”

Maz and Conrí immediately sit to attention.

“Yes-s-s-s-s,” Maz says, making grabby hands at Teddy’s phone. “I’ve been gone so long, I need this.”

Teddy checks his battery. 42%; good enough for now. “You guys ready for this shit?” He clicks onto Spotify, opens up his playlists. ‘hogwarts express 2k15’ is part of a tradition that spans back the last seven years, back when he was showing a confused fresh-from-etiquette-school Conrí the ropes of Muggle music. Now, every year, Teddy would DJ for the train up so the mostly magic families could hear what they were missing. And, because David would complain that he’d heard it all before, he’d throw in some weirder stuff too. He relished the challenge of finding music everyone would like, although he had a tendency to try to get everyone silent for the songs he really loved, which wasn’t a good look and he’d tried to stop doing that.

He turns it on and turns it up, and ‘Uptown Funk’ starts proceedings. Arden gets out some sweets she got at her grandparents’, Victoire starts telling the latest stories of her various travels across the world, and it’s like being back in first year. Teddy forgets about the stress, just for a little bit. Relaxes back. Tries _really hard_ not to think about the wild wastes of after-Hogwarts, how this is the last year he’ll ever go up there with his friends, how he has no idea what he wants to really do, how he has _no idea_ how to make his parents proud.

He clutches at the card in his pocket. He doesn’t think about it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you search up ‘hogwarts express 2k15’ on Spotify, you might just find a playlist of the best 2014-15 had to offer in pop music, plus a little more in the alternative/pop punk section. Teddy’s a pop punk emo kid trying to pretend he wasn't.


	4. September 1st 2015- A Speech

The same questions, every year.

"Was your dad... Remus Lupin?"

"Are you a... er..."

"But do you, like... when the _moon's_ up-"

Teddy had altered his strategies for it, year after year. The first few years, he was too naive and easily amused to realise that morphing his face to have sharp teeth and grinning at them would elicit the worst possible reaction. For a few years after that, he was too exhausted by only being known as 'Teddy the half-werewolf who'll change his hair colour if you ask him' that he would point-blank ignore people who asked. After a lot of long conversations with people he trusts, he realised that wasn't a good way of honouring his parents' memories, and so these days, he'd answer them as honestly and earnestly as he could.

Though, stuck in a boat with the more curious first years, Teddy was starting to lose patience.

"But like," a clearly confused muggleborn girl asks, her hat sliding off her head, "Are you a little bit werewolf, then? If you're half-werewolf?"

Teddy considers this question, looks out across the water. He hasn't done this journey since first year, and he's surprised by how exciting it still is to look up at the unyielding cliff face and see a castle looming down on their small boats. Ironically, he received much the same questions that time too.

"I have a really good sense of smell, and I can see in the dark," he finally says. This isn't wholly accurate, he can see in lower light than most others but he can't see in pitch darkness, and his sense of smell isn't exactly that of an actual wolf, it's more like the level a perfumer's at, he can detect the notes in things. But this causes the wanted reaction of everyone whispering to themselves, and Teddy can relax for a minute before the next question.

"Um, Teddy?" asks a timid voice. It's a kid with big blue eyes and pigtails, she kind of looks familiar. "My big sister said you're a metamorphagus, is that true?"

Metamorphagus questions are easier to answer than werewolf ones, and if he plays his cards right he can just keep taking morph requests until they're at the harbour. He takes off his pointed hat, sits it on his lap, turns fully to the boat and turns his hair bright yellow, lengthens it out to his chin so he can see what he's doing. They all gasp, and one of them leads the others in a round of applause. Teddy flares it between yellow and blue, quick-fire, then sticks on blue, shortens it back up, and goes for his mum's favourite party trick; a pig snout. He can't quite make it as real-looking as hers, but he snorts more convincingly, and it sells it. The first-years clap and laugh. He shifts his face back to usual, feels his nose and mouth to make sure the snout's all gone.

"Can I learn that?" The muggleborn girl asks, and one of the others laughs.

"Nope," Teddy says. "You're just born one or not." Her face falls, and he amends himself- "But if you love transforming things, you'll learn how to do all kinds of things exactly like that in Transfiguration."

The muggleborn girl, once again, frowns.

"Like become a werewolf?"

"Uh-"

"'Cause I've read Twilight, and-"

"- _uh_ -"

Another student cuts in.

"—Don't be silly, you don't want to be a werewolf-"

Another one interjects, "Yeah, my mum said it's like a curse every full moon-"

Teddy raises his voice a bit.

"Hey, look, we're almost at the harbour!"

The first years, thankfully, stop discussing lycanthropy once they go through the crack in the cliff wall that leads to the harbour. Same as his first year, Teddy looks straight up to see how high the crack goes; this time, he raises his wand.

"Lumos maxima."

The ball of light rises, rises, rises. It goes nearly fifty feet up. Inside, the slime-glistening rock is cracked nearly all the way up, but only widens out enough for their small boats to flow through the flooded bottom. The boats move into a single file; Professor Hagrid in front, then Aral's boat, then his. Foliage hangs down here and there, and Teddy keeps his wand in the air and his ball of light shining strong. Ahead, Hagrid's lighting the way with his lantern; Aral has opted to cast a patronus charm, a bull shark that swims through the water, then through the air. Its eyes are a sightless silver. It turns in mid-air, halfway through the rock, and regards his boat with one blind eye.

Teddy's never really managed a corporeal patronus, he's not much cop at Defence Against the Dark Arts, so he just sticks with his light, even when the kids in his boat marvel as the bull shark swims overhead. He definitely doesn't feel jealous that Aral's doing it easily, staring straight ahead with the shark flowing almost naturally from her wand. One kid laughs as the shark flows right through his chest.

Light at the end of the tunnel; the boathouse, dark and cold and high-ceilinged, with canals cut in the stone for their boats to arrive. Teddy jumps out and helps the first-years onto the dock; one of them rejects his help, and gets a wet foot for his efforts to crawl up himself. The bull shark surges out of the tunnel, surfaces and dissipates. Teddy lets his wandlight die out. In this light, the boathouse is dark and shadowy; the first years cluster around Hagrid, who calls them on and leads them with his lantern through the dungeons.

Up, up, and up, through the oldest parts of the school; stone staircases that are built into the walls and can’t move, walls so old they’d crumble if not for the sheer magic holding them together. There’s a smell of mouldering, and Teddy still doesn’t really get why first years are taken this way as their introduction to Hogwarts. Until they rise into the warmth of the castle, the first years stick close, eye up the place warily. Once they’ve made it up, though, and walk the entrance hall, the first years’ eyes light up. Teddy can understand why.

The entrance hall, he’s heard, was one of the most damaged areas of Hogwarts after the war, second only to the Great Hall. The Death Eaters burnt the doors down, huge oak things with a matrix of iron crossbars to turn in place and hold it shut (“and those doors had stood since Helga Hufflepuff built them in 1023!” Hermione had ranted one night at a Weasley reunion, her face flushed from the copious firewhiskey).  The fighting that followed had finished off the rest of the masonry besides a few parts of the wall and the load-bearing arches. And after the dust settled, the survivors were left with half an entrance hall and the necessity to rebuild.

Hogwarts was built by four wizards and witches on a rainy Sunday. Just two of its halls were rebuilt by a team of forty wizards and witches working on construction, transfiguration, design and tea-brewing over the course of eight months. Teddy guessed that whoever had been in charge of design had wanted to impart something new to a castle that proudly showed its age. The Entrance Hall was thin and long, opened out to the Great Hall at one side, ended on a solid stone staircase, always had done. But it was far different to the paintings Teddy had seen of what it once was.

It’s still Gothic architecture; bare stone, high windows in leaded glass, rib vaults, buttresses; but the stone _whispers_. It’s a deep jet black, which shows what little original wall remains like sandy grey scars. It isn’t made of blocks; it’s fused in a single piece. If you lean in close enough, you can hear the words of anyone who passed by close enough to have their conversations soaked into the stone. The ghosts don’t like it much, but apparently they don’t like much that isn’t quatrefoils and hammerbeam roofs.

Teddy spent a weekend last week just looking up architecture on Wikipedia. He likes to deep-dive for a day on subjects, muse about his future, pretend he’s an expert in the field.

He realises he’s zoning out way later than he should have done, stands up straight, refocuses his gaze and makes sure he’s standing to the right of Aral with the first-years in the middle like he should be. Looks over at the doors to the Great Hall, which look much like they had once done; oak, iron, several times taller than he is.

One great door slides ajar, and a man walks out. Balding, portly, amiable as he walks towards the group. Teddy smiles. Slughorn’s a bit useless at anything but Potions and social events, really, but he’ll be way better at the sorting talk than Flitwick or Tamburlaine, and he puts the first years at ease. He’s old, almost as old as Dumbledore was, but he barely looks it. He grins and looks the first years up and down, nods with a warm smile at Aral.

“Miss Rosier, a pleasure but not a surprise to see you with a Head Girl badge.”

To Teddy’s surprise, Aral smiles and gives a slight bow. He had never seen her smile before, _ever._ Slughorn turns his attention over to his left.

“And- Mr Lupin! Well! It’s been a long time since Hufflepuff had a Head Boy. Lovely to see you.”

Teddy smiles.

“Thanks, sir.”

Slughorn looks the first years over again- catches on one, the one with the pigtails.

“Excuse me, my dear,” he says, walking over and leaning down, “but you wouldn’t happen to be related to, ah- Susan Bones?”

The pigtailed girl looks up from under her hat. “That’s my mum, sir.”

Slughorn smiles. “You are the very picture of her. I only taught her for a year, but I never forget a face, and your mother was quite the Potions prodigy! What does she do now?”

The pigtailed girl mumbles.

“What’s that?”

“Works for the Wizengamot, sir.”

“The Wizengamot!” Slughorn exclaims happily. “Lovely! I simply must catch up with your family some time, I’ll owl a friend of a friend at the Wizengamot and see if I can’t hear more. Thank you, Miss-“

“Lexie.”

“Lexie, thank you.”

Aral clears her throat, and Slughorn looks over- then startles upright. “Yes! My apologies, I quite forgot! Welcome to Hogwarts! My name is Horace Slughorn, and I am the the Potions Master, the Head of Slytherin house, and the recent recipient of an Order of Merlin, Second Class.”

Slughorn seems quite pleased with that and leaves a pause almost like he’s waiting for someone to clap. Teddy shifts awkwardly. Maybe Slughorn isn’t the ideal speech-giver.

Slughorn, only a little daunted, continues. “In a moment, you will all be sorted into one of four houses- Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, or Slytherin. Your housemates shall become your closest friends; your House will become your home for the duration of your time at Hogwarts. Points will be awarded to your House for your achievements; and removed for poor behaviour. At the end of the year, the House with the most points receives the House Cup.” At this, Slughorn shifts a little. “And for those of you about to be sorted into Slytherin, we haven’t won in... quite a few years now, so I’d rather like you to be on best behaviour. Very good. Excellent. Well, what are we waiting for?”

At this, Slughorn sweeps around and starts walking. Teddy blinks.

“Er, follow Professor Slughorn, everyone.”

The first-years, bemused, follow along, and Aral and he take up the rear of the gaggle. Aral glances over to Teddy as they walk.

“I suppose you’ll be in the Slug Club this year,” Aral says. Teddy blinks over at her.

“Probably,” he says. “I heard most Head Boys and Girls are in it.”

“They are,” she says. She then says nothing, so Teddy says nothing, and they walk along awkwardly until they reach the end of the line and through the doors to the Great Hall, brushing his hand against the oak.

The Great Hall looks as it’s always looked. The candles shine bright as they float through the air, and the ceiling flows like a night sky. It’s so familiar it feels like a well-worn pit in his stomach. Teddy and Aral move down the side of the room, Aral stopping to sit at the head of Gryffindor’s table. Teddy keeps going until he’s found his friends on the Hufflepuff table, sits. Maz leans in.

“Tedster, check out the staff table.”

“Why?”

“ _Look_!”


	5. September 1st 2015- A Room

“They replaced Trelawney!”

Teddy looks and sure enough; Trelawney, who always sat on the far left, is gone. A... rather _strange_ man is sat there instead. He’s wearing a navy blue muggle suit instead of robes, although he’s perched a pointed hat on his head somewhat uncertainly. He doesn’t seem actively weird; in fact, apart from the thin rimless glasses on his nose, he’s entirely normal-looking. But there’s just _something_ about him, the way he’s looking around, the way he’s sitting. Something weird.

Teddy frowns, turns his attention back to the firsties about to be sorted as he whispers over the Sorting Hat’s latest song.

“Who’s that guy?”

Maz shrugs. “Didn’t see him on the train. Looks like a Muggle, doesn’t he.”

“Mm.”

Across the Hall, the Sorting Hat seems to have decided to be less tuneful than last year, delivering his song in some weird staccato bursts.

“Slytherin! A man of high birth- shunned all those not wizard-born. Hufflepuff! Believed in Muggles’ worth- took them all and taught the same.”

Maz glanced back at Teddy. “Is it just me or do these get worse year on year?”

Across the table, Conrí leant in. “We whispering over here?”

Maz leans across the golden platters. “Is the Sorting Hat going senile?”

“Nah,” Teddy whispers. “I just reckon he’s going experimental. He’ll be doing noisecore next.”

Conrí shakes his head. “He’s been on the sauce.”

“On what sauce?” Maz asks, waving a hand a little. “He’s a hat.”

Conrí clearly has no good response in the wings, and it shows. “Hat… halcohol.”

“I’m locking you out the dorms tonight,” Teddy says with a disapproving shake of his head. Conrí winces.

“Don’t start, the family’ve been doing that all summer.”

“Locking you out?” Maz gasps, a little too loud because people start looking round. Conrí scrubs a hand back through his hair nervously.

“Quieter, please. I’ll tell you later.”

“Sorry.”

Teddy’s already looking away, over to the Sorting. He has to pay attention because he needs to personally congratulate anyone getting into Hufflepuff; his prefects are supposed to do that too, but Conrí always gets a bit awkward about talking to new people and Emily Vaughn’s on the other end of the table. Lexie Bones gets sorted into Hufflepuff and- someone else, he doesn’t catch the name, but he does welcome them onto the table, a winning smile on his face.  A ‘James Pemberton’ gets sorted into Gryffindor. Everyone claps.

 The name ‘James Potter’ makes him wince, just a little, because the whispering that erupts uncontrollably reminds Teddy so strongly of his own Sorting. James seems more unconcerned than Teddy had been, and for that he’s silently thankful, although James does seem to be silently chanting something. The hat barely touches James’ hair before proclaiming ‘Gryffindor’, of course, and Teddy’s face splits into a grin as he stands and claps from across the room. James practically vaults to the Gryffindor table, looks up at Teddy with an elated smile: Teddy mouths ‘traitor’ with a big smile on his face. James sits, and across the Gryffindor table Aral Rosier leans in and says something. James nods. Teddy, suddenly acutely aware of how he’s the only one standing at the Hufflepuff table, sits down.

By the end of the sorting, smiling for every Hufflepuff besides, Teddy’s face hurts, and he’s thankful for McGonagall’s speech, even if the table whisper amongst themselves about how cruel it is to delay food any longer.

McGonagall’s got many names among the student populace. Her reputation for just _knowing_ you had done something was infamous, and her patience for any nonsense had apparently only lessened through the years. Some students hated her, most would prefer if she was at least nicer, but to Teddy she was the greatest headmistress Hogwarts ever had. He had always aced Transfiguration, which wasn’t exactly a cool subject to be good at. He always forgot to do his homework but McGonagall was, well- nice about it. She wasn’t overtly nice about many things, but whenever he’d ended up in her office for some reason or other, she had always been so much gentler than her reputation.

He still has no earthly clue what would possess her to make him Head Boy.

Today, she’s in her full robes, emerald green, and when she stands up no voices dare whisper.

“Welcome back to Hogwarts,” she begins, “and to our first years, I extend my warmest welcome.”

Beside him, Teddy can _feel_ Maz holding back a ‘how warm is the Arctic’ joke. He kicks her pre-emptively for the sake of safety. She kicks him back. McGonagall continues on, although her slight glance to the left, he’s _sure_ , made brief eye contact with him and Maz. How does she always know when people are misbehaving in her class?

“It is perhaps not uncommon knowledge to you all that Sybill Trelawney, our Divination Professor, has retired to Cornwall, upon divining in her tea that the rest of the European continent would soon sink beneath the ocean.”

Maz stifles a laugh. Teddy is too, but he kicks her anyway. McGonagall almost seems to be hiding amusement as well, although way better than either of them.

“We wish her well in her retirement. The position has been filled by a capable and respected expert in the field of Divination; Doctor Matt Wilson.”

Whispers erupt, in Teddy’s part of the table and across the Great Hall. Conrí leans in. “Somewhat of a normal name for a wizard, wouldn’t you say?”

Maz shrugs. “My parents’re muggles and they went for ‘Mazandaran’, so anything’s possible.”

“Touché.”

Up on the professors’ table, Wilson seems deeply uncomfortable but inclines his head politely. His hat slides a bit on his head. Teddy leans in to join the conversation.

“What do you reckon he’s a doctor in if he does Divination?”

“Maybe that’s his real first name.”

“Please, my father’s name was Doctor, call me Matt.”

McGonagall takes over again, and everyone in the hall falls silent.

“We look forward to Professor Wilson’s tutelage, and wish him the best for his first year. Now, as ever, I must advise students not to go near the Forbidden-“

Maz whispers way too close to Teddy’s ear. “Doctor Professor.”

Teddy has to bite down hard on his tongue not to erupt into a stupid giggle fit. He does not make eye contact. He’s shaking silently for the rest of the speech, which seems to go on forever, and his credibility is almost certainly ruined. He’s going to _kill_ Maz.

McGonagall finishes her speech simply: “Enjoy-“, and the Hall is filled with a thousand dishes. The first years gasp with excitement, and Teddy can finally let go of the giggles he’s been holding in.

“You’re the worst, Maz,” he said. “I have standards to uphold.”

“It wasn’t even a joke!” Maz defends, piling her plate high with the crispiest roast potatoes Teddy’s ever seen. “I just keep thinking which comes first, Doctor or Professor?”

Conrí weighs in. “Docfessor.”

Teddy sighs. “Once I get my Head Boy sword, it’s over for you two dickheads.”

A first year looks up in shock, and Teddy shakes his head. “Don’t worry, it’s just for use on other seventh years who _really deserve it_.”

The first year keeps staring. “Did you just say a swearword?”

Teddy blinks uncomfortably. “…No.”

Maz shakes her head. “You see what we have to put up with? A maniac for Head Boy. A dictator.  A _swearer_.”

“Oh, like any other Head Boy would’ve been nicer to you.”

“I could have bribed Conrí.”

Conrí steals one of her potatoes. “I’m expensive.”

Teddy smiles as the conversation spirals away from his involvement and starts jamming food into his mouth. He keeps reminiscing too much, but he really is going to miss this. He can’t believe it’s already the last feast, the last McGonagall speech he has to listen to Maz’ commentary of, the last everything at Hogwarts.

The last trip down to the Hufflepuff common room. His version of the Hufflepuff speech is pretty much the same as most, he didn’t try to ad-lib all that much, and Conrí and Emily really only tag on to add bits he’d forgotten of old speeches. Underrated house, everyone’s a family, you can steal stuff from the kitchens, etc. He knew there were always disappointed first years who wanted Ravenclaw or Gryffindor, but they always, always came round. He grabs up the bowl of Honeydukes sweets that’s always stocked in the common room, offers every first year a sweet, shows them the way to the dormitories, and then over to his new seventh year digs.

They really are digs in Hufflepuff, made to feel like badger’s dens- low-ceilinged smooth oval rooms, wood-panelled, always smelling as if they had been cut from the tree yesterday. Four-poster beds with draping yellow curtains, mattresses so soft you practically sunk into them. Two rooms connected by a door for the girls and guys, which in seventh year he was expecting to hear open and shut pretty much constantly. Thank god he’d figured out Muffliato over summer.

Conrí’s picked them out beds, and thank god for that because he’d been worried he’d be next to the door to the loos all year like he was in fourth . Right in the middle, center of the oval. Most of the guys are already half-unpacked, chatting loudly. He’s missed a hell of a lot of them.

Apart from Thomas Pentecost, who’s loudly updating everyone on his holiday to Peru with his semi-infamous phrasing of describing the people living in any location as ‘natives’. Thomas Pentecost is a dick, but _apart from him_ , he’s missed everyone.

He wonders how long it’ll feel like before he has to pack it all back up again.


End file.
